In the context of surgical applications Illumination and exposure deficiencies are judged by an observer based on the appearance of the rendered digital video image on the monitor. The video monitor or display is therefore part of the visualization system and its properties like dynamic range and linearity have to be taken into account to improve the viewing experience. The goal of a correction for surgical video would be:                Correct the digital image, so that when displayed on a particular monitor the total image area dynamic range matches the dynamic range of the human visual system within an almost fixed iris aperture, while preserving the contrast of image details to produce a reproduction of the scene that appears natural and adequate to the observer.        
The requirement for natural and adequate reproduction can be contradictory in itself. Natural in this context means that the observer feels like he is looking at the original scene. Adequate means that illumination and exposure deficiencies are removed that would normally force the human visual system to continuously locally adapt to different illumination or reflectivity conditions. Though, a purely reflectivity based approach eliminating all illumination “artifacts” would actually not appear natural to the observer and can impact his orientation and therefore his navigation ability within the scene. Shadows for example are illumination artifact that actually supports the human eye's visual depth perception especially if a monocular versus stereoscopic system is used.
Prior-art systems do not provide for real-time correction of endoscopic video images to reproduce, on a surgical monitor, a natural and adequate representation of the surgical site.